The diary begins with March 10, the appearance of the first bluebird, and gives a delightfully humorous account of all the haps and mishaps of an amateur farmer’s summer, until the reader takes leave of him on November 21, meditating before his empty pork barrel—he still had his pork barrel left—after the pigs, reared with so much effort, expense and expectation, turned out to have been tubercular. He consoles himself with characteristic optimism, that, in spite of a pile of unreceipted grain bills and other debts, he now has before him the satisfying winter pleasures of milking, bedding, feeding and caring for his stock twice a day by lantern light. The book is dedicated to amateur farmers, particularly to professional and salaried men, whose love of the soil and of domestic animals takes them to the country not for the money profit that may result, but for the interest in the life for its own sake.
+ Booklist 17:74 N ’20
“Professionally I am inclined to condemn the book as a piece of deliberate manufacture by a man who knows too well that he is expected to be funny; personally I like it very well indeed.” W. A. Dyer
+ Bookm 51:686 Ag ’20 650w
“‘The worst farmer’ satisfies all expectations with its dry wit and skilfully woven humor.”
+ Boston Transcript p4 Je 9 ’20 460w + Cleveland p72 Ag ’20 50w
“The book is amusing in its way, and no doubt many amateur farmers will find their own experiences more or less accurately reflected in this ‘Real diary of the worst farmer.’”
+ N Y Times 25:236 My 9 ’20 450w Outlook 125:125 My 19 ’20 50w + St Louis 18:228 S ’20 20w
“Aside from the humor of the book one finds the author a genuine nature lover.”